Scheduled Task for patching help

[Magnus Knight]

I just started using Batch Patch two days ago.

I set up a scheduled task to Download and install updates + reboot if required. I also made sure to turn on the scheduler.

This task ran last night, but doesn’t appear to have patched or rebooted anything. I received an HTML report, and they all say the same thing. I also checked several machines for recently installed updates, and none of them received any updates last night.

This is the report for all of the systems. What did I do wrong?

Windows Update Messages

Attempting to initiate Windows Update (Action: Download and install updates. Server selection: Default / Managed) … – 03:00:15

Schd Task – Action

Download and install updates + reboot if required

Schd Task – Next Run Time

Wednesday – 03/09/16 – 03:00

Schd Task – Recurrence

Monthly (2nd Wednesday)

Email Body

$grid

All Messages

Wed-03:00:15> Windows Update: Attempting to initiate Windows Update (Action: Download and install updates. Server selection: Default / Managed) …

Wed-03:00:15> Windows Update: Establishing connection…

Wed-03:00:15> Windows Update: Initializing…

Wed-03:00:14> Windows Update: Queued…

Wed-03:00:13> Scheduled Task: Initiating ‘Download and install updates + reboot if required’ – Wednesday – 02/10/16 – 03:00.

[doug]

Magnus – It’s unclear to me what might be happening here. Let’s please start by removing the scheduler from the equation and starting with the basics. What happens if you highlight a computer (or computers) in BatchPatch and then select ‘Actions > Windows Updates > Check for available updates’ in BatchPatch?

Thanks,

Doug

[Magnus Knight]

Hi Doug,

I think I see the issue, when I followed your suggestion. When I launched that command, it popped a security warning asking me if I want to allow PSExec.exe to run. When I had the task scheduled to run last night, the same prompt probably happened, but there was no one to say OK to allow.

Now I need to see how to set it so PSExec can run. Should I try it as the service option?

[doug]

When the popup appears about PsExec, that’s coming from Windows not from BatchPatch. It’s part of Windows trying to protect you from software that you downloaded from the web. On that popup there should be an option to check a box to never prompt you again. And then in the future when psexec runs, it will just run without prompting at all.

-Doug

[Magnus Knight]

Yeah. I see. I should have thought about that beforehand. I wasn’t thinking about the scheduler getting stuck, not being able to launch PSExec.

Thanks Doug, for the help and the quick reply!

[Magnus Knight]

Hi Doug,

It’s still not working. I didn’t do anything for April’s updates. I manually ran “Check for Updates” and that worked with no issues. I don’t understand why the scheduled task doesn’t appear to be running.

It did change the next run date to the second Wednesday of May, so it recognized the date changing.

I just checked my scheduled tasks list, and I don’t even see BatchPatch in the list. Shouldn’t BatchPatch have created a scheduled task to be ran in Windows?

[doug]

Magnus –

First, you will not see anything appear in the Windows Task Scheduler. BatchPatch tasks have nothing to do with Windows scheduled tasks.

Second, it’s unclear to me what the problem is that you are encountering. BatchPatch must be running in order for tasks to be executed, so perhaps that’s where you’re going wrong. I would suggest you review the tutorial for using the BP task scheduler here: Using the Task Scheduler in BatchPatch

Third, to test what you configure, I would recommend that you create some testing tasks that are scheduled to execute just a minute or two in the future, so that you can watch and make sure that they execute accordingly. If they are using monthly recurrence then you can also modify your system time temporarily to trigger a task to run if it’s scheduled for next month, just to make sure you understand how everything works and that everything executes as expected.

I hope this helps.

-Doug

[Author]

Posts